


Everything a Bit Broken

by thingsbaker



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 20:03:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3741904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingsbaker/pseuds/thingsbaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The call he received came from Mycroft, not Sherlock, so John took immediate note. "He's in hospital," Mycroft said, his tone clipped. Wasn't it always? This was different, though; John wasn’t sure how, but he was sure. “I wonder if you might come immediately.”</p>
<p>“I’ll just grab my coat.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written after Series 1 and has no spoilers for anything except, hey, I guess Sherlock and John have some chemistry, hmmm?   
> Definite trigger warnings for mentions of sexual assult.

The call he received came from Mycroft, not Sherlock, so John took immediate note. “He’s in hospital,” Mycroft said, his tone clipped. Wasn’t it always? This was different, though; John wasn’t sure how, but he was sure. “I wonder if you might come immediately.”

“I’ll just grab my coat.”

“Very well.”

They didn’t say good-bye or discuss addresses, but John knew he wouldn’t need that information, just as he knew Mycroft’s request was actually a command. The black car waiting outside was no surprise. That it was empty inside was, a bit, but John climbed in anyway.

Sherlock had left the flat only about five hours ago, mid-afternoon, muttering about looking at something for his current client. It had still been light out then, though the winter skies had clouded up and darkened early. As far as John knew, the only thing he had on at the moment was some minor case having to do with art forgery and a pensioner’s widow. Not terribly dangerous. No one dead or likely to be. John hadn’t become involved because Sherlock had told him it would take less than seven hours to solve from the start. He neither wanted to extend the length – frustrating Sherlock’s expectations never worked out well for either of them – nor shorten the case by offering some offhanded, unintentional clue, because he wasn’t anxious for Sherlock to slide back into boredom. So he’d sat carefully on the sidelines. Now he wondered how a case that seemed to be populated by elderly ladies might have landed Sherlock in hospital. It seemed possible that he’d angered the wrong biddy with the right cane. As amusing as that was, he didn’t figure Mycroft would’ve called him out for just that.

It took only about 20 minutes from Baker Street to the hospital. It should have taken longer, but the lights changed rather miraculously as they traveled. John had already tried texting Sherlock – no response – and he knew better than to call Mycroft back. He belatedly wondered whether he should have sent word to Lestrade, but then again, there were a few reasons Sherlock might be in hospital that would be better kept from the detective inspector. He traveled on in silence.

Once there, Anthea was waiting at the front, and she led him through a waiting room and down a long hallway without saying a word or even once looking up from her phone. Surely it couldn’t be as bad as all that, then, John thought, but his hands stayed steady.

It turned out he needn’t have worried about asking Lestrade to the scene; he was already there, as was Donovan. John slipped in behind them; Anthea stayed in the hall.

Sherlock was sitting up on a clean white bed, though the pillow was crumpled a bit. He’d been lying down. His shoes had been removed, though his socks were still on; his suit jacket was nowhere to be seen, and the white dress shirt he wore was hastily buttoned, crinkled, and had smudges of dirt at the shoulders and cuffs and blood on the collar. John wasn’t sure what that all meant, but he was certain Sherlock had been in a fight. His blood-crusted nose and bruised eye were evidence of that, as was the gash across his otherwise pale forehead.

That gash. Not your usual scrape, was it? A long, single line – like a knife. A knife. Who held a knife to someone’s forehead? Someone taller than Sherlock? No – so he was sitting down, or on the ground. John shivered. Probably not the old ladies, then. Even he could deduce that much.

“Moriarty,” Sherlock was saying, and John sighed at that. He felt a surge of relief. Sherlock had faced the man – again – and lived to tell the tale. He was here, glaring at Lestrade, not down in the morgue keeping company with his experiments.

“He mugged you? Himself himself?” Donovan said, clearly skeptical. She had a notepad out, but as far as John could see, she hadn’t taken any notes.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “No, of course not, but this is part of his overall plan, his – goal.”

“To tear the heart out of you?” Lestrade asked.

Sherlock nodded, the barest dip of his chin. He caught John’s eye for the first time, and John offered a concerned frown. Sherlock looked away immediately. Well, they’d been in a row before he’d stormed off that afternoon. Sherlock didn’t always realize that sometimes circumstances dictated a resolution. All of the annoyance John had felt, though, at being made to make the tea another time – that was gone. He was just glad Sherlock was fine, would be happy to take him home, make him tea, bundle him into bed, listen to him rant about any of this.

“How’s he do that, by stealing your wallet? Seems a little low-rent for your mastermind friend, doesn’t it? Then again, I guess the low-class of it never stops you pick-pocketing people.”

Lestrade sighed. Sherlock was frowning, but he didn’t bite out a reply. Maybe he’d really hit his head, John thought. “Donovan, shut it for a moment, can you?” Lestrade said. “Now, look, you say these were Moriarty’s guys, fine. Tell me how to find them.”

Sherlock nodded. His eyes narrowed as he sunk into his own head. “Two men. One was about 175 centimeters. Brown hair, very short, but no military background – penitentiary.”

“You could tell he was in prison from his hair cut?”

“Yes. But not recently – got out at least a year ago. Probably Belmarsh, from the look of his tattoo – the work is smudged, but quite high quality, so probably Jonas James or an acolyte. Blurred, though, so not something he sought out. Painful. Not a joiner, then, so not a particular gang member.”

“Age?” Lestrade asked.

“No more than 28.”

“Any idea what he does?”

“Manual labor, by the state of his hands. Not well paying. Loading vegetables, I think. Organic. Small farm operation, likely; probably paid in cash, as his wallet was thick with it.” He grinned, a small, grim thing. “I did take it off him, but he managed to get it back.”

“You saw his wallet. ID?”

He scowled. “No. No cards. Just money, a receipt dated yesterday from the Tesco Metro near King’s Cross for a toothbrush and toothpaste. You don’t buy those together unless you’ve forgotten one. So: out of town. Only bought a small toothpaste, so: came in for a weekend.”

“All right. A vegetable loader. The other bloke?”

“Stronger. Tall – 185 centimeters, though some of that came from his shoes. Black Wellingtons, rubberized, soles worn more at the front than the back, so possibly used for sports, not standing. Thick mud in the tracks, which suggests he’s either a gardener – unlikely – or from out of town somewhere. Someone who works with horses.”

“What, he told you that?”

“He had horse hair on his trousers,” Sherlock said. “And I could smell it on him.”

Lestrade looked perplexed. Donovan said, “Is that why he broke your nose? You were sniffing at him?”

“No,” Sherlock said, and he turned his glare to her for a moment. “I assure you, I had ample time to observe all of these details.”

“Right, while they were cracking your head open.”

John decided this was as good a time as any to break in. “What exactly happened, by the way?”

“Freak’s been mugged,” Donovan said. “I don’t know why we’re listening to a word of this, anyway. You’ve got concussion, the doctor said.”

“You were knocked out?” John asked. His voice was perfectly steady. It wasn’t so much of a shock. Things like this seemed to happen to Sherlock more than one would imagine.

“Only briefly,” Sherlock said, waving his hand as if to dismiss the effects of head trauma.

Lestrade sighed. “Anything else, Sherlock?”

“Single,” he said. “But married at some point. The marriage broke up when he lost his rather well-to-do job and was forced to take something much lower paying.”

“How could you possibly –”

“His underwear,” Sherlock said. John shifted. Something bad was coming, he knew it. Sherlock was too calm. He wasn’t enjoying this. “Very high quality, showed signs of careful laundering. That says wife or mother. Indent on the ring finger says wife. But the trousers were falling apart now. That says either the wife stopped caring – unlikely – or the wife is gone. The rest of his clothing was not of that same class. That says the underwear, like the wife, are a relic of an old life.”

Donovan coughed. “His underwear, freak? How d’you explain seeing that?”

“As I said, I had ample time,” Sherlock said. He was staring right at the wall, his eyelids slightly lowered, his voice nearly bored.

“How exactly –“

He glanced between the two detectives, then stared hard at Donovan. “It’s rather amazing the things one notices when trying not to think about the penis being forced into one’s mouth.”

There was a moment of hard, clear silence in the room. John saw Lestrade’s head turn toward him, just slightly, and guessed that he was looking to him for help. He couldn’t help him, though; he was still stunned. He tried not to close his eyes. He didn’t want to imagine this.

“What? Sherlock,” Lestrade said, his voice now quiet. “You said they mugged you.”

“I said they’d assaulted me,” he said. “Do keep up. Any investigator worth his salt would have picked up the signs by now. Look at my wrists.” John did, and noticed, now, how red they were, how likely forming bruises. Something began to burn in his chest. “There are also at least two impressions on my neck that did not come from wearing my scarf too tightly. The knees of my suit – really, Donovan, I’d’ve expected that’s a detail you’d notice – are worn, and the cut on my head is not one that either of the two men I’ve described could easily give without either them standing on chairs or me kneeling before them.

“I’ve also developed an involuntary flinch every time anyone opens that door or moves much closer. My voice is a bit raw sounding, and,” here he paused, and his head bowed suddenly. When he spoke again, it was in a quiet, almost uncertain voice. “Do you know, I think I may actually be in some kind of shock.”

It was mesmerizing, John thought, it always was, listening to Sherlock deduce. It was also thoroughly frightening when he was talking about himself. John’s hands were clenched in fists. “We don’t have to do this now,” Lestrade said, and John heard his own voice, finally.

“No,” he said, voice sharp and clear and commanding. “Ask him. He should get this out while it’s fresh. You’ll never catch the bastards otherwise.”

Sherlock looked up then, and John was fairly certain the look he got was gratitude. It only made sense. John thrived in emergencies; Sherlock thrived when his mind was engaged, when he was working out a mystery. If he could help Lestrade with this, it would be the best treatment possible. John stepped around Lestrade and went to stand next to Sherlock’s bed. He did flinch, but only for a moment, and John didn’t try to touch him. He made a show of collecting his medical file from the tray at the end of the bed, and he focused on it. It said exactly what he might have expected: concussion, contusions, abrasions. A massive beating ending in unconsciousness. There was no mention of the sexual assault, which meant that they hadn’t done the bloodwork they should have. John would have to see to that. He’d have to see to many things, he thought. This would be a new kind of awful experience.

Lestrade asked Sherlock all the standard questions, and mostly stayed quiet while Sherlock recited the details down to the nib. Donovan had stopped talking and was looking at Sherlock with something like shock on her own face. John felt about the same. Really, Sherlock, assaulted like this? It didn’t make much sense. It didn’t – even to John, who knew that at his core, Moriarty was a truly evil man – seem like the kind of thing an archenemy would do.

The descriptions they eventually got were probably enough to allow Lestrade and Donovan to start knocking on some doors. Lestrade mentioned he’d send a crime team to the scene, and Sherlock snorted, then winced. The attending doctor had noted it was probable his nose was broken, though it hadn’t needed to be set. “Like they’ll find anything.”

“You’re not going, though,” John said. He’d read enough to know that Sherlock should barely be moving. He had two broken ribs and one cracked, boot-mark contusions and abrasions all down his back, skinned knees and a very battered head. He’d lost some blood. He’d been unconscious for the better part of an hour. John put one hand carefully on Sherlock’s arm. Sherlock jerked minutely, then sighed.

“I suppose not,” he said. His skin was surprisingly cool even through his shirt. “But please, send someone with half a brain –”

“I’ll send Wiest, not Anderson” Lestrade said. It was the closest he came to saying what John could read all over his face: how very, very sorry he was that this had happened at all.

“Very well,” Sherlock said, a clear dismissal. “I gather I have some medical examinations to endure.”

“Text me, if you don’t mind,” John said, and Lestrade nodded.

Then the police were gone and it was just the two of them in Sherlock’s hospital room, John’s hand still resting on Sherlock’s arm. He turned to face Sherlock and found him staring ahead. “I’d rather not have any kind of scene,” Sherlock said.

“That’s two of us, then,” John said. He briefly squeezed, then released, Sherlock’s arm. “Did you manage to talk to your client?”

Sherlock scoffed. “You missed that part, I guess. I had a text from her, not long after I’d left. She wanted me to come by, look at some piece of art her son had found. That’s where I was headed.” He shook his head. “I should’ve known. The diction was wrong.”

“A fake message, then?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“How’d you wind up here, then?”

“Ambulance,” Sherlock said. “Apparently, an old woman found me blocking her skip when she went to empty her bin and called it in.”

John tried not to think about cold it was outside. “And Lestrade?”

Sherlock sighed. His hands folded in his lap. “I assume that was Mycroft’s doing. You, too?” John nodded. “Figures. I imagine my name is on some kind of automatic warning list he’s set up. Any time I show up here, there’s probably a bell that goes off.” His eyes closed, just briefly. “Surely he won’t phone Mother.”

“I think he can be counted on that far,” John said, though he wasn’t completely sure. It wasn’t always obvious where the boundaries were with, or between, the Holmes brothers. “Am I to watch you for signs of concussion tonight, or aren’t you allowed to leave?”

“You’re my doctor,” he said, and his voice did sound raw, and weary, and worse than all of that, bewildered. “You tell me.”

“Home,” John said. “I’ll go and tell someone.”

It took him only about three minutes to find a nurse and be routed to another doctor, who was glad enough to have Sherlock off his hands. “He’ll need some follow-up,” the man said, and John knew that was certainly true. He also knew Sherlock wouldn’t do any of it, at least, not the mental stuff; John could administer and monitor the blood tests himself, with Mike’s help at Bart’s or maybe even Sarah’s at the clinic.

Back in the room, Sherlock was standing, one hand on his hip, staring at the floor. “I don’t have my mobile,” he said.

John nodded. “I’ll ask Lestrade to keep an eye out.” He looked around the room, then opened the cupboard near the door. It was empty. “D’you know what they did with your jacket?”

Sherlock sighed. “I imagine they sold it.”

So they’d stolen it. “Shoes, too?”

“Shoes, jacket, coat, scarf, wallet, phone.” He reached up as if to rub his forehead, then winced. “Not bad at making it look like a robbery.”

“It was a robbery,” John said. “Well. I’ll find some slippers.”

He did, and then a blanket. Sherlock balked at the last. “Do you really think I’m in shock?”

John rolled his eyes. “I think you’re going to freeze outside, without something on.” Sherlock still shied from the blanket, so John sighed, cast it aside, and shrugged off his own jacket. “I’m your doctor,” he said, holding it out. Sherlock frowned, but he allowed John to drape it over his shoulders. He winced again, and John said, “Bruised?”

“Quite,” Sherlock said. He put his arms slowly through John’s sleeves, then stared at how far his hands stuck out. John was tempted, for the first time he could remember, to take one of Sherlock’s long, pale hands into his own. That wasn’t the relationship they had, though, and there wouldn’t be a scene now. Instead, he pulled his own mobile from his pocket and handed it over. “Something to keep you awake on the ride home,” he said. “You’re not going to sleep for a bit.”

“Yes, I imagine that’s true,” Sherlock said, clicking the phone open.

 

+++

 

There was no touching scene once they got home, either. Mrs. Hudson took one look at Sherlock’s face and clapped both hands to her mouth.

Sherlock said, “John has gambling debts,” and limped his way up the stairs while John tried to explain what had happened.

“Oh, it’s getting so bad out there,” she said when he mentioned the mugging. “Can’t go anywhere. It’s just not safe any more. I’m glad we’re here, still a safe street, but just wait! The city gets worse every year.”

John nodded. He wasn’t ready to reveal Sherlock’s Moriarty theories just yet. Mrs. Hudson was more afraid of him than she was of London going bad, and John didn’t need to spread panic. He thanked her for her concern and promised to keep her updated, then followed in Sherlock’s footsteps up to the flat.

Sherlock went nearly immediately to the bath after they came in. John figured that was natural enough. He heard the shower turn on and listened outside the door for a moment, just in case Sherlock needed any help getting in. Then he stayed put outside the door, telling himself it was because he should be keeping an eye and ear out for anything, lest Sherlock’s head was worse than he thought and he fell. Really, he just wanted to be nearby, but he wasn’t sure how to ask. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen now, what even should happen now.

It was made worse, he thought, by the fact that he wasn’t always sure how to act around Sherlock these days anyway. They’d progressed only recently into a new, strange, somewhat romantic relationship, which was to say that they’d had sex over a dozen times (John had lost count, but he was sure Sherlock knew) and talked about that exactly zero times. Last month, after they’d been sleeping together for three weeks, John had rather casually asked whether Sherlock might like to go to the cinema the next evening, and Sherlock -- bored and terrible -- had told him he should find himself a girlfriend if that was the type of entertainment he craved. John still wasn’t sure how to take that -- was Sherlock his boyfriend, then? Or was Sherlock open to John having a girlfriend while they remained... whatever it was they were? Flatmate-fuckbuddies?

There had been some small signs that perhaps it was more than just a distraction for Sherlock. He had once taken John out for breakfast after they’d woken up together; once sat with his bare feet in John’s lap while they ate biscuits from a tin confiscated from Mrs. Hudson’s pantry; once bought him a sturdy pair of leather gloves for no apparent reason; and once, last week, he’d come into John’s room two nights in a row, and the second night, he’d just laid down and slept. In the morning, his arm had been over John’s stomach when he’d woken for work. It wasn’t flowers and candy, but that wasn’t Sherlock. John thought they were making some subtle, exciting progress, actually. He thought perhaps they were getting a bit more involved, and he had to admit, he liked it.

And now, this. It was too awful to think about. Sherlock was absolutely the same when he was having sex as he was the rest of the time, but it was such a different experience. He was still bossy, still selfish, and still and always so very, very open about what he was thinking, feeling, wanting. It was amazing. The same personality quirks that made him nearly impossible to live with the rest of the time made him a mind-blowing sexual partner: vulnerable and knowledgeable all at once. So very appealing. John hated, with a fury that surprised him, took his breath away, nearly, hated anyone who would have given Sherlock any cause to be less open, less beautiful and careless, by making the act of sex so awful and painful. He couldn’t imagine that Sherlock, who over thought everything, wouldn’t be dramatically affected by this ordeal. Frankly, he couldn’t imagine that he himself wouldn’t be affected. He felt worse for the wear already.

When Sherlock emerged, he was in a dressing gown, pulled tight, and nothing else. The pinkish bruises at his neck stood out like bumps against his pale, damp flesh; the delicate skin around his eye seemed to be blackening even as John watched.

Sherlock didn’t say anything about John’s vigil. He met his eyes for only a moment and didn’t make any expression, just stood there until John realized he needed to move a bit or Sherlock couldn’t get past him in the hallway. Not without touching. He backed up a few steps, and Sherlock walked slowly out and over to his bedroom. John stayed where he was, his back pressed to the wall, near the linen cupboard that Sherlock used to store boxes of test tubes.

“Where are you hurt?” John asked.

“You’ve read my medical file,” Sherlock said. His voice sounded shaky, still, and too deep.

“Yes, I meant, where are you hurting right now?” John called. There was no reply. “Is your throat bad?”

“Could use a cup of tea.”

John knew that was a dismissal, but he stayed put. “No caffeine. Not with your head like it is.”

“My head,” Sherlock said, his head appearing around the doorframe, “is fine, thank you.”

“You’ve got concussion.”

“You’re trying to figure out whether you should give me any of the pain pills the doctor sent home,” Sherlock answered. He disappeared, and John heard his bed creak as he sat down. “Right now, no.”

“So you’re feeling – all right?”

“I feel as though I’ve been hit with a pipe and strangled against a wall,” Sherlock said. “Neither of these feelings yet requires medication.”

John stayed silent for a moment, trying to think how he could ask what he wanted to ask without sounding like he was eager to see Sherlock’s wounds. In truth, he was a bit eager, because he wanted to know exactly how bad things were. He wanted to know what to expect. He wanted, more than anything, to be helpful. “Is there anything—“

“I require nothing.”

So he went back downstairs. He made tea – decaf, horrible stuff, he had no idea why they had it – and considered heating up some beans. He wasn’t sure whether Sherlock was hungry, whether he’d eaten anything at all. Would he want to? John could get a takeaway, come to that. He didn’t need to cook.

Sherlock emerged downstairs after what felt like a very long time. Twenty minutes, perhaps. He was slightly flushed against his pale button-up pajamas, and John realized that he probably had needed help getting dressed. Broken ribs and countless contusions. God. “Ah, tea,” he said, taking a mug when John offered it. It wasn’t scalding hot anymore, but Sherlock took it anyway and didn’t even complain.

“Do you want me to get a takeaway? Are you hungry at all?”

“Peckish,” Sherlock said. “Though from the noise, I believe Mrs. Hudson might have taken care of dinner.”

John stepped into the hall and from there could smell it: some kind of meat roast. Beef, he thought. Lovely.

He was grateful, actually, for Mrs. Hudson’s company, too, when she brought up the food. Sherlock retreated nearly fully into his own head and John’s laptop screen the moment he was settled on the couch, so having Mrs. Hudson flitting about, setting up dinner and then, at John’s invitation, taking a chair herself, was just fine. They turned on the television and found a new house makeover program that Mrs. Hudson liked. “Reminds me of my brother,” she said. “He tried to redo a great old house once. Was going to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast, but it never quite worked out. He was a bit like you, Sherlock. Constantly up to something, always in a scrape.” She shook her head. “Dear man. Terrible luck.”

John only knew that Sherlock was listening because he saw his hands slow, though not stop, on his computer keys. “It wasn’t luck,” he said, shortly, and went back to whatever he was doing.

After an hour of vapid TV, John ushered Mrs. Hudson back down to her flat with many thanks and promises to share the leftover roast with Sherlock. When he turned from the door, he found Sherlock still in the process of standing. “I’ll sleep here,” he said as he straightened.

“Of course,” John said, quashing the small hope – was it even a hope? – that Sherlock might join him that evening. Of course it made more sense for him to sit up and sleep, and the couch would be more comfortable for that than John’s narrow bed or Sherlock’s messy one. He brought down a pillow and a quilt and set a glass of water within Sherlock’s easy reach. Then he added a box of tissues, in case his nose bled, and cup of tea and a few biscuits for good measure. He surveyed his work, then paused. “If you want, I could sit here a while.”

Sherlock blinked. He was still staring at John’s computer, but his typing had slowed. “What for?”

John shrugged. “In case you need something.”

“If I need something, it will doubtlessly be an issue at 3 in the morning, not right after you’ve delivered the entire contents of the kitchen to me.”

“Right,” John said. “OK. Well. Good-night, then.” Sherlock nodded. John paused at the foot of the stairs. “I’ll be back down, of course. You’ve got concussion.”

“Right, fine,” Sherlock said.

John still felt a little strange, nervous, almost, at leaving him there to go up to his own bed. If Sherlock felt anything similar, he didn’t show it.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, it was obvious that neither of them had slept well that night. John had spent the night in fitful sleep in his own bed with his hand curled round the pill bottle they’d been sent home with. He didn’t like administering opiates to an addict, but he saw the necessity of having them on hand. Sherlock had yet to ask for any, and John hoped that meant only that he was coping, not that he was self-medicating.

Sherlock looked destroyed when John went downstairs. He was sitting at their kitchen table in his pale, matching pajamas and dressing gown. His left eye was shot through with bright, eerie blood, and the bruise around it had darkened to match his hair. His nose was swollen and purplish on the bridge. On the table, his hands were pressed together in the usual triangle, but John could see the pressure, the tension, between the fingers – they were white at the tips, mashed against each other to mask trembling or pain or both. Probably both. His eyes stayed on the table as John approached, ostensibly reviewing the news on the laptop screen in front of him, but his hands didn’t move for over a minute. There was nothing Sherlock read that slowly. He looked half asleep. He looked bloody awful.

That was to be expected, John figured, particularly since he’d had to wake Sherlock every few hours to make sure his head wasn’t permanently broken. Among that, the difficulties of breathing through his swollen nose, the broken ribs and bruised shoulder blades that made sitting difficult and lying down impossible, and whatever was going on in that rather always cracked head, it wasn’t so unsettling that the morning found them both gray-faced and exhausted.

What was disturbing was Sherlock’s insistence that they go immediately to Scotland Yard. “Whatever for?” John asked, hands around his first mug of the day.

“Because they’ll have more information by now,” Sherlock said. “And they clearly aren’t going to share it voluntarily.”

“We could try just ringing them,” John said, though he knew Sherlock was right. Lestrade was a smart man, and a rather good one, and he was unlikely to bother them with anything less than critical information or questions right now. There hadn’t been a single text all night.

“I’ll go without you,” Sherlock said, “if I must.”

“Sure you will,” John returned, but he knew it wasn’t a fight he could win. He wasn’t going to win any fights with Sherlock, not for a while, not while Sherlock’s face was a tiger-striped mess of bruises and bloodlessness. “Right, can I at least get a shower first?”

“There’s no hot water,” Sherlock grumbled. His own hair was again damp. That made at least two baths since they’d arrived home.

“I’ll make do.”

He did, though Sherlock was telling the truth. The few moments of calm, chilling clarity that the shower brought weren’t unwelcome. When he got out, his tea was gone, and Sherlock was dressed in suit trousers, shirt and jacket, and a dark blue scarf. Only the pallor of his face and the hand he had gripped tightly around the back of the chair showed what an effort it must have taken to wrangle himself into his clothes. John thought he was panting slightly, too. He gripped the bottle of pills, now in his jacket pocket. Should he offer?

“I don’t think they’re necessary,” Sherlock said.

“Have you had anything?”

“Nothing worth mentioning,” he said. John wasn’t sure what to make of that. “I hope you have money for the cab.”

Sherlock made his way down the stairs very carefully, one hand on the rail. “We ought to call your bank,” John said. “Was your card in the wallet?”

“Isn’t it in yours?”

John fumbled around and found it, sure enough, in his own wallet. “How do you function without – oh, never mind.”

“They took almost 500 quid,” Sherlock said.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say he deserved getting mugged, walking around with that kind of money in a dodgy area, but no. Sherlock was clinging to the front door frame just to catch his breath. No. No one deserved this.

At the Yard, they went immediately to Lestrade’s office. Sherlock kept his head up and his stare straight ahead, but John looked around as they walked through. It wasn’t the usual air of dismissal, annoyance, even fear that accompanied them. There was a tinge of pity and sympathy in their glances. That was a better result than he’d hoped, really; he thought there were those who would’ve gladly visited violence up Sherlock in that office. Maybe this, though, was crossing a line, even for them.

“Well, the good news is, we’ve found your coat and jacket,” Lestrade said as they walked in. He pointed to a plastic evidence bag. “They’ve been combed by forensics. They’re yours.”

Sherlock nodded but made no move toward the bag, so John grabbed it. He felt a surprising swell of relief at this news; he’d briefly pictured Moriarty holding them for his own. He seemed just the creep to do it. Inside the plastic, though, there was the standard black trench, a suit jacket, and even his brilliant blue cashmere scarf. Too much to hope that the shoes would have come back, he thought, but those could be replaced easily enough.

“What else have you found?”

Lestrade took a seat behind his desk and gestured they should follow suit. John did, but Sherlock stayed standing. He wondered if it hurt too much to get into the chair, then realized that sitting meant keeping his back to the door. From where he leaned against the wall, he had a much better view of everything. Fine, John thought. That’s good.

“Well, we’ve actually matched your report to several other, similar reports in the area.” He lifted a stack of thin folders and held them out. Sherlock took them with only the slightest hint of discomfort.

“Common robberies?” Sherlock said, voice filled with disdain. “That’s hardly the same as—”

“Two of them, one last month and one last week, involved sexual assault,” Lestrade said. “Very similar to your, ah, case. And there’s the knife at the head.”

Sherlock nodded and flipped through the files. He opened one at the bottom. “Stock broker? What’s a stock broker doing in that part of town at 5 in the afternoon?”

“What’s a consulting detective doing there?” Lestrade said. “Anyway, the point is, we haven’t had a good description of them until now. They’re plain faced, they’re average height, all of that. But now with what you’ve told us, and what we’ve found from the robbery squad, we’ve got a set of suspects. Do you want to have a look?”

Sherlock’s eyes widened. John sat up. Five minutes alone, he thought. “You’ve got them here?”

Lestrade shook his head. “No, but like you said, the one’s been in prison, so we’ve pulled some photos.”

“Oh. Of course.” He cleared his throat, but John had already caught the shaking voice.  
Lestrade hit a button and paged Donovan, asking her to bring over the photo sets. While they waited, Sherlock studied the files, and John looked from him to Lestrade. He could almost sense the man’s questions: how’s he doing, really? he seemed to be saying. Truth was, John had no answer for him. He shrugged, minutely, and Lestrade nodded. He turned his arm over and tapped one finger against the inside of his elbow.

Before John could shake his head, Sherlock asked, “Shall I leave you two to gossip?” He didn’t raise his head from the folders.

Lestrade sighed. “Good to see all’s usual, then.”

“I assure you, I’m quite –“ Sherlock began, but the door opened and he startled and dropped the folders. Donovan stood in the doorway, staring open-mouthed as Sherlock cursed. He bent to pick up the papers and then gasped and turned a horrible shade of green.

“Down, sit down, you,” John said, pushing his chair over and then easing Sherlock, with hands on both shoulders, down into it. Lestrade was already collecting the papers from the ground, and John stooped to help. Sherlock rested his hands against his chest. His eyes were closed, his color dangerously wan. After the explosion of a moment before, his silence was like a weight. “There, that’s all done, then,” John said, shuffling papers randomly into files. He knew it didn’t much matter; Lestrade or fucking Donovan could sort them later.

Lestrade stood helplessly behind his desk, hands spread. Donovan’s mouth was still open. “Is there anything we –“

“A cup of tea,” John said, studying Sherlock’s too-even breathing and flushed red neck, “would be welcome.”

“Right.” Donovan and Lestrade walked out together, and John rested one hip on the desk. He was two feet from Sherlock and afraid to move any closer.

“I don’t need tea,” he said, his voice low, quavering, almost too wet.

“I might,” John said. “Your ribs?”

“Brilliant deduction. No money wasted on your medical degree.”

“Mm.” Sherlock’s heart was beating so quickly and so hard that John was fairly convinced he could see the pulse at his neck. His breath was coming in what must have been painful heaves. In anyone else, he’d expect a breakdown. He pulled the pill bottle from his pocket. “Right, then, let’s try this.”

Sherlock’s eyes fluttered open. “You’re sure?”

“Either you take them, or I do,” he said. “One of us should be in top form.”

“Really,” Sherlock said, taking the capsule in one trembling hand. “What’s paining you?”

“Same thing as always,” he said. “Bloody know-it-all flatmate who can’t sit still to save his life.”

A tiny quirk of a smile appeared at the edge of Sherlock’s mouth, already closed around the capsule. “I may need two.”

“Let’s wait and see.”

Sherlock nodded, slowly, as though trying out whether he’d be able to do so. John stood still, waiting to see his breathing even, waiting for things to feel OK again. Maybe the last was impossible, but the former came after a long, silent minute. Through the glass wall of Lestrade’s office, John could see him and Donovan trying to gauge whether it was safe to come back in. Safe as it ever was, he figured. Sherlock was mercurial at the best of times; he had a feeling he’d react quite sharply to any expression of sympathy. “So,” he said, opening the door, “you’ve got the photographs?”


	3. Chapter 3

They weren’t of much use. Sherlock studied them and offered a variety of suggestions about what each grim-faced convict had done and could still do, but none of them jumped out at him as obvious. He did manage to narrow it down to five possibles, based on hair length, nostril size, John didn’t even know. He didn’t need to know. For the half-hour that Sherlock had been focused on those faces, he’d been fine and things had felt normal. It was only as they’d walked out, again through the sea of now too-kind faces, that he’d started to feel the pit in his stomach again.

“No,” Sherlock said when John gave the cabbie their address. He rattled off a different destination, in completely the opposite direction. “I’ll need to see the scene while it’s still daylight.”

“Sherlock!” John groaned. “You’re nearly dead on your feet. I’m not you, but don’t think I can’t deduce that.”

“No, you’re not me.” Sherlock’s voice was low and ragged. It had only been an hour since he’d taken the pill, but the edge of pain evident in his speech made John grip the canister again. “No one is me. And I need me, someone like me, to look at that crime scene. If all they’ve got this morning is those bloody awful photographs, there’s something that’s been missed.”

“Something like what?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock admitted. “But it’s clear that Lestrade isn’t looking in the right direction. He didn’t mention Moriarty even once.”

Lestrade actually had mentioned Moriarty, but only to John: “We haven’t found anything yet that shows this is more than your garden-variety assault,” he’d said very quietly while Sherlock was busy tearing into the photographs. “Does he have some kind of information he’s not giving us, you think?”

John had said, honestly, “I don’t think he’s held anything back.” As far as he could tell, this was what it looked like when Sherlock cooperated.

Now, though, they were on their way to getting in the way of the whole investigation. Lestrade wouldn’t appreciate that much, but – well, since when did he care what Lestrade thought, particularly when Lestrade wasn’t making much progress. Besides, it wasn’t as though he could let Sherlock go alone. Not now. He looked over, briefly, and wondered if he would go alone, wondered what it would cost him to determine that he couldn’t go alone. Too much. “All right,” he said. “But no more than twenty minutes.”

“Usually, I only get five,” Sherlock said, his face a hideous mimic of his usual cheer at getting what he wanted.

John looked away. He couldn’t help thinking this was a terrible mistake. It didn’t take a therapist to see that returning so soon to the scene of the crime was liable to bring up some rather difficult emotions. John himself felt a little nauseated at the prospect. Yet Sherlock wasn’t like everyone else, as he was so fond of pointing out. Maybe this was necessary for him. It didn’t seem impossible. It didn’t seem likely, either.

They wound up on a street that was party residential, partly commercial, buried deep in what John thought was Streatham. Sherlock had the cabbie stop at the corner, and they got out in front of a little Indian market. “So, where were you headed?”

“Two blocks over,” Sherlock said. “I stopped here for a coffee.”

John glanced over. Sherlock was staring up and down the street, turning, taking in all the details. John held his bagged coat and scarf and jacket, his hands clenched underneath them. “You don’t much drink coffee when you’re working.”

“Older women find men less threatening if they have something in their hands,” he said. “Also, saves me having to turn down tea and hurt someone’s feelings if I’ve brought my own. Expediency all around.”

Fair enough. “So, you got out here. You got the coffee. Did you flash your wallet while you were in the store?”

“I bought the coffee from a stand,” he said. He stopped at the edge of the sidewalk, just in front of the store. “It was here.“

“A cart?” Sherlock nodded. “Did you flash your wallet?”

He shrugged, then winced. “I spilled a bit on my wrist. The lid was broken. Terrible coffee, too. No wonder they’re not here today.”

John glanced up and down the street. It wasn’t exactly busy; there were two ladies standing at the bottom of some stairs at the very end of the street, one of them tethered to a small child. The storefront was blocked with posters advertising cheap phone cards and mobiles. There were two alleyways that John could see. One had a large green skip at the end. It was on their side of the street. “Then what?”

“I started toward the end of the block.” He did this, now, and John stayed a step behind him. Sherlock’s head was swiveling side-to-side; he had one hand cupped around his wrist. “Do you know, I think I was followed.”

“From the cart?”

He nodded. “Here. There was a man – one of them, he was just here.” He’d stopped about five meters from where the cart had been, and he pointed to a small, dark corner made by a set of broken concrete stairs leading up to a dilapidated door. The corner reeked of urine and was littered with trash and leaves. Sherlock stared but didn’t charge forward, like usual, didn’t start digging through filth.

“We should tell Lestrade,” John said, standing beside him. “They might find something there. A cigarette butt, something with DNA or fingerprints.”

“Mm.” Sherlock rubbed his forehead, then grimaced. “How did I miss his face?”

“Head down? Was he wearing a hat?”

“He – he may have been turned,” he said. “I – the smell, and his posture, I thought he was taking a piss. I remember that – I thought, my god, in daylight, and then I kept on. He must have come up behind me.”

“How’d they get you in the alley?”

Sherlock snorted. “Gun. Obvious.”

John wasn’t sure how that was supposed to be obvious to him; then again, he wasn’t sure that Sherlock meant it should be obvious, or that it was quite a risk, on a street like this.

“The one from behind?”

“No,” he said. He started down the street. John stayed close. It wasn’t difficult, for once, because Sherlock’s stride was much shortened by his injuries. They passed two boarded up houses, another that looked like it would be condemned any day. Then the alley with the green garbage crate. Sherlock stopped, his back still turned. John could barely hear him.

“From here,” he said. He blocked my path. “I said excuse me, tried to walk around. He had a gun – small caliber, scuffed, not well taken care of.” He looked back at John and the edge of his mouth lifted in a small smirk. “I pushed past him.”

“You shoved past a man with a gun?”

“It was a small, badly cared for gun. It didn’t, somehow, register as a threat.”

John bit back every sharp thing he wanted to say. “What did?”

“A pipe to the back of the head, I believe,” Sherlock said, his hand hovering over the back of his scalp.

“Christ,” John said. “No one saw that? No one heard --?”

“It was already getting dark. I don’t think I cried out,” Sherlock said. “I – it was surprising, yes, but I – and of course, the pain was immediate. I stumbled. They pulled. We were out of sight within roughly twenty seconds.”

John looked up and down the street. There were no visible CCTV cameras. The main road was several blocks away. “How do you think they found you here? Was the cab followed?”

Sherlock cocked his head. “Possible,” he said. “Though it seems unlikely. I walked to the chemist’s before I caught a cab. I didn’t notice anyone following me from the flat and that’s a one-way street. More likely, GPS traces.” He put one hand in his pocket, then frowned. “Can’t very well check my mobile for a bug now. Brilliant. Common robbery, right?”

He turned and strode down the alleyway as though it was any other crime scene. John half expected him to pull out rubber gloves. He followed a few paces behind, feeling tentative, over alert. There had been no one on the street except the two distant women when they’d walked in; it stood to reason no one had followed them. Yet that didn’t make him feel any safer as they moved past the skip and into the dim, dank center of the alley.

It wasn’t even really an alley. It was more like a little yard of decay. It was exactly the width of the rowhouses that surrounded it, and the concrete edges let on that once, another awful house had stood here. Time or fire or neglect had apparently torn it down, and the remaining ground was uneven, probably gashed by the plow that had removed the ruined bricks and mortar. There were tire tracks, now, probably from supply lorries that needed a place to turn around after delivering to the little shop, and from the garbage collectors.

The two houses to either side towered three stories up. The windows of one were covered with tin foil; the other sported boards in place of broken glass. No public lights or cameras penetrated the gray gloom. It seemed like a cave, like a place that would be cold even in the midst of summer. The strong scent of rotted food warred with a sickening stench of human waste and decay near the skip. This was not a place anyone went willingly. It was, John realized, drawing up behind Sherlock, almost the perfect place for a sexual assault.

“At first, it was the wallet. I didn’t – I wasn’t going to give it to them, but the knife came out.” He shook his head. “A knife and a gun. Proper lowlifes, I tell you.”

This didn’t feel like investigating. This didn’t feel helpful. This felt like Sherlock torturing himself. Torturing them both. “You deduced that?”

“I thought I had,” he said. “The shorter one, he’d done time, but not a lot. Not a killer, just a thief. Fine. If he’s not willing to shoot, then I wasn’t going to give him my wallet.”

John could just see that, could see Sherlock standing there and telling off two blokes armed to the teeth, deducing things about them – oh, Christ, he thought, it’s such a wonder you weren’t killed.

“I was standing right here,” Sherlock said. He was standing with his hip just brushing the skip, one hand hovering over the edge of it. “And the bigger one said, ‘On your knees.’”

“And they hit you with something,” John said. Sherlock nodded. His hand curled and uncurled in mid-air. “Sherlock, what are we doing here?”

“I thought,” he said, and then he paused. His face was pale and he needed his coat, but John couldn’t bear the thought of putting it on him, not yet, not while it might still smell of forensics powder and this godforsaken little alley. “I thought something might register,” he said, finally, his voice full of surprise.

John nodded. “The forensics team’s been over this,” he said. And you’re not yourself, he nearly added, but didn’t. Instead, he said, “You know, it’s all right you don’t remember anything. Lestrade seemed to think they were doing just fine.”

“Yes, fine. What a lovely word to hear when there’s a murdering psychopath on the loose.” Sherlock turned, slowly, so that he was facing the brick wall. He looked it up and down. John dug into the plastic carrying bag and found Sherlock’s magnifying glass in his coat pocket. He handed it over, and Sherlock took it wordlessly.

“There’s blood here,” he said.

“Is it,” John began, then swallowed. “It is yours?”

“I don’t believe so,” Sherlock said. He sounded thoughtful, not troubled. Thank god for that. “The splatter isn’t at the correct angle. Too high.” He walked slowly to where John was standing and put his hand on John’s arm, steadying himself, as he shrunk to a crouch next to him. “I think they’ve been here before.”

“Oh?”

“Explains how they knew it was so unlikely to be noticed back here.” He used John’s arm to help him up, and hissed a little as he stood. “Text Lestrade. None of the reports he gave me mentioned anything on this same block. Someone’s missed something.”

John took out his mobile and did as he’d been asked. He also let Lestrade know about the corner where the man had stood. Then he looked up at Sherlock, who was just as pale as before, staring back at the messy corner next to the stinking skip. “That’s it,” John said. “Time’s up. Let’s get home.”

“No,” Sherlock said. “We should -- the other people, the victims.” He pronounced the last word with terrible disdain. “We should talk to them. There must be a connection.”

John sighed. “I said twenty minutes and I meant it, Sherlock. You’re injured. You need to rest, not to go traipsing about London harassing people.”

Sherlock glanced over. “Harassing? I merely want to --”

“Badger them with questions about their possible connections to a murdering psychopath?” John shook his head. He stepped out of the alley, stood on the sidewalk. Even the pale sunshine made him feel better. He wished Sherlock would follow him, would get out of that awful place. “Not everyone wants to relive this kind of thing. Not everyone remembers enough to be helpful.”

“So I should just not even try, you’re saying?”

“No,” John said, “no. What I’m saying is, sending Lestrade’s people to interview them will likely get you as much or more information than you’ll need to make a connection.” He stopped and stared at Sherlock, not saying but thinking what he wanted him to know: They’ll make a victim out of you, too. They’ll want a connection you’re not ready for.

“Damn you,” Sherlock hissed. “Lestrade’s investigators are not adequate, and I am  _fine_.”

“Sure you are,” John said. “You’re fine. Fine. Let’s not do this now.”

“No? When should we do it, John?” Sherlock finally did follow him, stepping out onto the sidewalk so quickly that John watched him stagger as the pain caught up. He pressed one hand against his chest as he continued. “Should we wait and see what Moriarty’s cooked up for me next? Should we let the trail go cold because I should be at home weeping or something?”

“No,” John said, “but I think maybe we could wait until you can stand up straight without gasping before we go chasing around town.”

“I am fine!” Sherlock shouted. “I’ve had bloody broken ribs before.”

“And a broken head,” John said. “Not that it isn’t broken all the time.”

Usually, there would have been a retort -- immediate, sharp. This time, though, Sherlock’s head tipped to the side, and his eyes narrowed briefly, then he blinked and said, “Fine. Home.”

John frowned, but decided action was the best answer here. He walked toward the Indian shop, hoping perhaps to see a cab on the cross-street. Sherlock came slowly behind him, his stride even and calm. Too calm, John thought. Maybe he was planning to divert the cab again. Well, that was an easy trick to mess up. John had the money.

“Can I at least borrow your mobile?” he asked, from very close behind him, “or is that too strenuous?”

“Of course,” John said, handing it over. Sherlock started clicking away almost immediately, while John saw and waved to a taxi down the street. It approached, and he opened the back door for Sherlock. He climbed in, carefully, and sat near the door, meaning John would need to walk around. “Oh,” Sherlock said, patting his jacket pocket. He sat up, put one foot out of the cab.

“What?”

“I’ve left my magnifying glass. I’ll just be a minute.”

A minute, for Sherlock, could be far too long. “No, stay put.” He handed over the bag with the coat and jacket. “I’ll be right back.”

He jogged toward the alley; halfway down the block, he heard the taxi’s motor rev up. He turned just in time to see the car pulling away. “What in --” He turned and ran after it. Sherlock was faced forward, not waving or seeming alarmed. “Bastard!” he said, and then swore again when he realized his wallet was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time he reached home, John was well past anger and back into worry. (Sherlock had left him a 20 pound note, after all, which nearly got him back home). He borrowed Mrs. Hudson’s phone as soon as he was in and sent a message to his own phone.  _Where are you?_

“Everything all right?” she asked.

“Not really,” John said.

“Where’s Sherlock?”

John sighed. “He’s busy being an idiot,” he said.

“Well,” she said brightly, “it can’t be as bad as all that if he’s up to his usual tricks.”

It can be, John thought. It is. He checked the phone again. Three long, silent minutes had passed. “Could I use it again?”

He was in the middle of composing a new text, this one to Lestrade, when the doorbell rang. Mrs. Hudson excused herself to answer it while John tried to figure out how to word his request without sounding too worrying. He’d nearly settled on, “Has Sherlock gotten the address list from you?”, knowing that was how he would have been in contact, when he heard a grating and familiar, cheerful voice.

“Ah, Dr. Watson. I hoped I might catch you at home. I was just in the neighborhood,” Mycroft explained, his smile at once bright and terrifying and false and true. Rather like his brother in that. John just stared. He wasn’t even sure what to do with Mycroft right now. He never really was, but the usual solution -- telling him to piss off -- wasn’t quite right this time. “I wondered if I might trouble you for a cup of tea?”

“Oh! I’ll just put the kettle on,” Mrs. Hudson said, clearly already fascinated by Sherlock’s dapper brother.

“No need,” John said quickly. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Hudson, but I couldn’t possibly trouble you further. Come up, Mycroft, I’m sure I can find something.”

“Quite good of you.”

John unlocked the flat and let Mycroft pass inside first. He gave the armchair a small thump with his umbrella as he strode by; John didn’t think he cared. It was Sherlock’s chair, after all. He closed the door and stared at Mycroft’s back. On the way up the stairs, he’d thought of something new. This wasn’t a friendly visit, obviously; they weren’t friendly with Mycroft. Sherlock had run off, and now something bad -- something worse -- had happened.  _Say it_ , he thought.  _Just tell me_.

“He’s quite safe,” Mycroft said. “I assure you.”

John let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “You know where he is?”

“Mm. Kensington Station. Doubtlessly deducing the travel destinations of everyone he passes.” Mycroft turned. His smile had wound down into something more real but still terrifying. “Your mobile is GPS enabled, you know.”

He -- shit. He did know, of course he knew. He just hadn’t thought of it. Probably, he would have, once he reached the flat and saw their computers on the end tables. Probably. “You didn’t come all the way here just to tell me Sherlock’s all right.”

“No,” Mycroft agreed. He put a hand into his pocket, then drew out a very small, slick black phone. “I imagine he’ll need a new one.”

It was doubtlessly bugged, doubtlessly registered in some terrible government program that would alert Mycroft every time Sherlock set foot outside their apartment or ordered the wrong kind of dinner. Though a tiny, Sherlock-like voice in his head protested, John thought that was wonderful, really. He took the phone with a nod of thanks.

Mycroft cleared his throat. His eyes were flicking up and over their things, across Sherlock’s many books, over their messy table. “I’ve read the physician’s report from the hospital. About the, ah, incident. Is it true?”

John didn’t even bother with the speech about privacy. The concept didn’t seem to register with either Holmes brother. “I’d imagine so,” he said.

“And what they’ve left out,” Mycroft said, and only the raise of his eyebrow told John that was a question.

“What they’ve left out is Sherlock’s business, if he wants to tell you,” John said, and Mycroft frowned.

“So it is as I suspected, then,” he murmured.

John sighed. “Yes,” he said.

He nodded. For a second, maybe just a half second, the look on Mycroft’s face was one that John wasn’t used to seeing: sadness, disappointment. Maybe, just slightly, anger. Hurt. Though he quickly cleared back to his usual dour face, John understood. Mycroft did worry constantly, and this must have been the confirmation of his worst fears. Someone had hurt Sherlock. Even if Sherlock refused to act like it had ever happened.

“I really can make a cup of tea,” John said.

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Mycroft said, though he looked like a man in need. Perhaps he’d have a nip of something in the car, John thought, then nearly grinned. The thought was too absurd. “I just wanted -- well, to speak with you, where he wasn’t.” He straightened himself. “Sherlock has never dealt well with sympathy. He sees it as pity.”

“Yeah, I’m catching on to that,” John said.

“But I do feel quite -- awful,” Mycroft said, his voice surprisingly soft. “Really. I would have never wished for this.” He seemed to be nearly talking to himself. “If I had only been paying more attention.”

John frowned. He didn’t think that was true -- he’d been to the scene, he wasn’t sure how Mycroft could have kept a better eye out -- but he was curious. “Why -- if I might ask, why weren’t you watching, that day?”

He studied the wall again. “He’s been much safer, of late. With you. It didn’t seem so -- necessary.” He tapped the umbrella against his shoe and looked quickly over at John. John figured he deserved that, after what he’d just asked. He hadn’t been keeping an eye out as much recently, either. It hadn’t seemed as vital, not after a year of no word, not even a peep, from Moriarty. He’d let himself forget about the big monster, focused instead on the day-to-day.

“There wasn’t any way to have stopped this,” John said.

“Probably not,” Mycroft agreed. “We do everything we can, of course, but crime --”

“Right,” John said. He didn’t want to hear the Ministry’s line on Sherlock’s sexual assault. Not from Mycroft, not from anyone. “He’s convinced it’s Moriarty.”

“I know,” Mycroft said. “What do you think?”

“He’s usually right about these things,” John said, and he knew even as he said it that Mycroft would read exactly what John felt into his small equivocation: he wasn’t sure, not at all, that Sherlock was right this time.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll find a solution,” Mycroft said, tone again too bright. “If I were to trust my brother’s case to anyone, it would, really, be my brother.”

John nodded. It summed up perfectly how he felt about the whole business, too. No one was better than Sherlock, even a distracted, pained Sherlock.

He and Mycroft said a quick, awkward good-bye, and he was down and out before John had even made it to the couch. What a ridiculous family, he thought, though he felt somehow a little nicer about Mycroft at the moment. The man did worry.

 

 

When Sherlock came home two hours later, his hair mussed with rain and his face pale as parchment, John was lying on the couch, staring blankly at the TV. Sherlock took two steps into the flat and said, “My brother is a nosy git.”

John blinked and sat up. “How’s that?”

“He was here. Mycroft.” He shook his head and hobbled toward the armchair. He lowered himself into it slowly, but John didn’t miss his grimace. Christ, he looked just awful. Pale, a little crust of blood by one nostril, eyes red-ringed. If he was running a fever, John would shoot him. He walked to the kitchen and put the kettle on, then came back to the living room.

“How’d you know?”

“Bloody awful cologne,” Sherlock said. “And you would’ve been worried, otherwise. You’re not worried.”

“I actually am, a bit,” John said. “You look like death warmed over. Except not warm. Where’s your coat?”

“I dropped it at the cleaner’s,” Sherlock said. He was shivering. John sighed and went to the cupboard for a blanket. He held it up while Sherlock took off his damp suit jacket, then he pressed it over him. “Am I back in shock, then?” Sherlock said, but he didn’t turn it away.

“So what did you find out?”

“Precious little,” Sherlock muttered as John returned to the kitchen to prepare the tea. “I spoke with Thad Anchor. Terrible man, hateful little wife, three god-awful children. Mugged three months ago near an abandoned schoolyard. Wouldn’t even say the word ‘rape’ while his wife was in earshot.”

John was a bit surprised to hear Sherlock use the word, but he didn’t know why. They dealt with terrible crimes all the time. Sherlock was never fazed by the terms. John wondered why he found himself stumbling over saying anything stronger -- truer -- than “the attack” in his own head. Even as he asked the question, he answered it for himself: he didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think of Sherlock being raped, of anyone assaulting him. He hated that this had happened. He hated it.

“What’s the connection?”

“There is none,” Sherlock said, sounding miserable.

“None?” John paused in the act of tearing open a packet. “How can you be so sure, already?”

“Of course, I’m not sure,” Sherlock said. Cross was a much better sound on him than discouraged. “But there’s nothing obvious or inobvious. He’s a banker in Leeds. He goes to school plays. Doesn’t cheat on his wife, doesn’t make more than he should, still has debt from studying in America for a while. And – worst – he wasn’t even in the right place at the right time the day they got him. He got off the Tube at the wrong stop and got turned around.”

John poured the water and dropped in the tea, then let it steep a moment before he carried the mugs to the living room. He handed Sherlock his and took stock. Maybe he sounded so bad because of his nose. “Did you have a nosebleed?”

“I faked it to get a look at their washroom.”

John set his tea down, then reached out and turned Sherlock’s face with one hand on his cheek. God, but his skin was cold. “That’s not fake blood, though.”

“Well. I tried a bit too hard to fake a nosebleed,” he said, and John sighed.

“So what does it mean, that there’s no connection?”

Sherlock took a small sip of his tea, made a face – no wonder, it had barely steeped, and John hadn’t added any sugar – and set it on the side table. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not impossible to believe that he’s set it up this way. No connections, a seemingly random crime. The police won’t care, he’s not endangered. But I get the message all the same.” He rubbed his forehead gingerly, his fingers weaving on either side of the gash.

“So you think, what, this wasn’t a warning? Just a hello?”

Sherlock smiled grimly. “Something like.”

That thought was too miserable to think of. John collected his tea and took a seat on the couch. A mad man, he thought. Moriarty’s absolutely mad.

Sherlock tried his tea again, and though he pulled another face, he drank it. John watched. He waited until the cup was empty, until he could see Sherlock’s shoulders starting to curl inward, and then he said, “All right. To bed with you.”

“Can’t,” Sherlock said.

“What, you have someone else to interview?”

“I need to sit up.”

John smiled. “You can do that quite comfortably in bed. Come on. I’ve had broken ribs before, too.”

Sherlock frowned. “Is that a good idea?“

“I’m your doctor,” John said.

Sherlock rose, slowly. God, but he looked almost pitiful. It was frightening to see him moving so slowly, frightening more still when he just stood there. There was none of the usual manic energy about him, none of the usual zeal or even the usual scorn. “John,” he said, his voice low. “Do you want to have sex?”

“Right now?” John said, a bit aghast.

“Well, that’s certainly an interesting question, but no,” Sherlock said. “Ever again.”

John sighed. “Sherlock,” he murmured, and Sherlock didn’t move. “Well, of course, I do. Not tonight, not right now. That’s not on my agenda. But ever again? Of course.”

“To be clear, with me?”

“Yes, with you,” John said. “Of course with you. You’re brilliant at it, and -- I know we haven’t ever talked about this, but I do, I, well. I quite enjoy it. With you. All of this.”

Sherlock nodded, just once. He was staring at something on the floor. “It’s never been something I -- felt entirely comfortable with.”

“Right. Wait. Sorry. D’you mean how we are, or sex in general?”

“Sex, of course,” Sherlock said. “We’re very comfortable.”

“Yes.” John nodded. He’d known this about Sherlock from the start. It wasn’t that Sherlock was some kind of blushing virgin -- John wasn’t convinced that Sherlock could even blush -- but that Sherlock was clearly not a man used to being particularly open about things, and that was exactly what this required. “And yet you’ve been rather successful at it. We both have, I think. Together.”

Sherlock’s lips quivered, as though a smile was fighting to come through. “Yes. Well. What I mean is, now, I -- “ he stopped and John watched his hands curl into fists. “It’s so absolutely frustrating to find one’s own reactions to be so on par with those more ordinary.”

John didn’t have to ask what he meant. The man was shaking a bit where he stood. He couldn’t make eye contact. The great Sherlock Holmes couldn’t make eye contact. “Listen,” John said. “This isn’t something we need to decide tonight. Give it some time --”

“Damn time!” Sherlock said. “Damn -- damn all of this. It’s -- it’s awful, and it’s humiliating.”

“OK,” John said in the same voice he might use to soothe a soldier freaking out on the line. “All right. Yeah, it is pretty bloody awful. But let’s take this one step at a time, all right? First, could you sit down?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re trembling,” John said, “and I don’t want you falling and re-damaging that gorgeous head of yours.”

Sherlock did actually smile at that. “Really, flattery, John?”

“It’s gotten me pretty far, hasn’t it?” He met Sherlock’s eyes, gave him a smile he didn’t even have to try for, not too hard. He did want Sherlock, nearly all the time, did think he was a gorgeous bastard, did want him in his bed.

“ I accept your medical opinion of what would be best for tonight,” Sherlock said. “Let’s go upstairs. Bring the new mobile.”

John reasoned that just because this was less of a fight than he’d expected, it didn’t mean he needed to make into more. “All right, then,” he said, grabbed the mobile, and followed Sherlock up the stairs and into John’s room. Sherlock sat slowly on the edge of the bed, one hand pressed to his chest. His breathing was labored just from the stairs, and maybe – well. From it all. John sat next to him and felt him trembling. “Would the medicine help?” he asked quietly.

“Yes and no,” Sherlock said. “It causes some vivid dreams. I’m not sure –“

“Right,” John said. “Well, some ibuprofen, at least, to take the edge off the swelling.” He touched Sherlock’s face, gently, his fingers resting just along the dark smudge of his bruised eye. Sherlock still wasn’t meeting his eyes.

“About this afternoon.”

John sighed. “Are you going to apologize, now, because I’m really going to think your head needs closer examination.”

Sherlock looked up, and John saw the flicker of a smirk. “No. I was only going to say – I didn’t relish the thought of leaving you behind.”

“Well, that’s something,” John said. “I didn’t much relish the thought of walking home, so thanks for the 20 spot.”

“Least I could do,” he said.

“I know – there were three of them in my wallet. Where is that, exactly?”

“Downstairs in my jacket.” Sherlock smiled. “I’ll get the groceries next.”

“Seriously, did you hit your head again today?”

“It’s fine,” Sherlock said. John carefully ran his fingers through Sherlock’s hair. “It’s all fine.”

When Sherlock was settled, John lay next to him and let his arm rest just so against Sherlock’s thigh, a warm and he hoped welcome pressure. He thought about Sherlock’s question, the hesitation there, and something inside of him exploded into that same dark, dangerous rage he’d felt earlier. He would find these men and rip their hearts out.

 

 

The next morning, Sherlock did not demand they go immediately to Scotland Yard, because Scotland Yard came to them.

John was making tea when he heard the door downstairs. At first he thought it might be a delivery for Mrs. Hudson; then he heard feet on the stairs.

“We’ve got them,” Lestrade said as soon as John opened the door.

“You’ve – really?” He nodded. “You’re sure it’s them?”

“That tip Sherlock sent us yesterday about the coffee cart was spot on. We found the owner this morning and he sent us straight to the other two.”

“Really?” John wondered why Sherlock hadn’t mentioned sending a tip. Odd, that. Then again, they’d had other things to discuss yesterday, hadn’t they? “Well, this is great news.”

“Yeah. We thought – it might help if he could come down and have a look in person. You know? Do you think he would?”

John nodded. “Almost certainly.” Lestrade kept staring at him, and John finally understood. “Now, you mean. Right. I’ll just go and ask.” He started to move the kettle off the hob.

Lestrade said, “No need, if you want. I know the way. Been through that rubbish heap of a room more than once for drugs.”

“No need,” Sherlock said, appearing at the bottom of the stairs. If it was possible, he looked worse today than the day before; his bruises were still dark, and as he was wearing only a half-buttoned shirt, they were visible from his neck to mid-chest. The bruises on his chest had yet to fade into anything even manageable; they were livid red and purple, the pattern of a boot sole visible at the edge. Had the men stood on him? John wondered. The sexual assault still stood out as the worst part, but god, the beating itself had been terrifically severe, too. Sherlock’s voice was low and rough. “You’ll find nothing in my room.”

“Ah,” Lestrade said. “Jesus, Sherlock, you look awful.”

“Oh?” He glanced downward as though unsure what Lestrade could be talking about. “Yes, well, I’ve only just woken.”

He shook his head. “You know, this can wait, if you’re not --”

“Of course I’m coming,” Sherlock said. “But I want to interrogate them.”

Lestrade coughed. “No, seriously,” he said.

“I’m being absolutely serious.”

John knew he was, and he knew it would be pointless to try and impress how inappropriate that request would be. Lestrade, poor man, had to try anyway.

“You’re not -- you’re not an investigator on this case, Sherlock.”

“No? I seem to remember giving you the tip that made it possible to catch these men.”

“You’re an eyewitness,” he said. “I can’t have you messing about, ruining our case.”

“Your case?” Sherlock raised one eyebrow perfectly, then gestured at himself. “I thought perhaps as the victim in this case, I might be permitted to face the perpetrators.”

“But why?” Lestrade said.

Sherlock sighed. “Please, spare me your concern. They’re connected to Moriarty, and I want to know why. It might be enough for you that they’re off the street, but I’m almost completely uninterested in that. They weren’t likely to assault me again, were they?”

Lestrade shook his head.

“Besides,” Sherlock said, “you have plenty of other witnesses, if you’re worried about their court case.”

John said, “When would you want us there?”

“Soon as you can,” Lestrade said. “I’ll have them brought up for questioning. Because I’m insane,” he said, muttering the last.

“It’s one of your best qualities,” Sherlock said, nearly smiling.

He leaned against the door frame as Lestrade left, and when John came back, his face was dangerously pale. “I may need your help,” Sherlock said.

John nodded, waiting.

Sherlock sighed. He held out his hand, and it quivered in the air between them. “I can’t seem to button my shirt properly,” he said. “I would appreciate your assistance.”

“Oh,” John said. “All right.” He stepped forward and grabbed the lowest button. “That’s, um. Listen, are you --”

“They’ll know something,” Sherlock said, his face turned from where John was fastening his shirt. “Whether or not they know it, whether or not Lestrade believes me, whether even you do -- they’ll know something. They may be able to lead me to him.”

“Right,” John said. He heard Sherlock take a sharp breath as he moved to fasten the final button; his knuckle brushed Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock flinched as John tightened the shirt.

“Really,” John said, stopping. “Is this a good idea?”

Sherlock glared at him. “They aren’t likely to jump me at Scotland Yard, are they? I rather think it might be satisfying to see the tables turned.” His voice was too cavalier, John thought, but then again, it always was. “Hurry up.”

“You’re shaking.”

“Of course I bloody am,” Sherlock said. “Physical proximity continues to prove a challenge. It’s fine,” he said, when John had finished and stepped back.

“It’s not fine,” John said. “You’re not fine.”

Sherlock sighed impatiently. “My involuntary reactions are simply a manifestation of anxiety from the entire experience. I assure you, my mental performance is unaffected. It’s a minor inconvenience.”

“A minor inconvenience,” John said, stepping abruptly closer and watching Sherlock flinch again, “that you’re terrified all the time?”

“I’m not,” Sherlock murmured. He crossed his arms and only winced a little. “I just haven’t completely mastered my own reactions, yet. I will.”

John shook his head. God, this was going to go so wrong, he thought, but he knew there was nothing to be done. Not while Sherlock was still convinced he was fine, he was coping. They’d go, and it would be a disaster, and it would tear them both up. Lovely.

“Why would he hire such imbeciles?” Sherlock asked. “If you’ve got the entire criminal world at your beck and call –“

“It was rather last minute,” John offered.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Sherlock muttered. “A robbery, done by common criminals? It’s inelegant, and inefficient, as a way of getting my attention.”

John sighed. “You said it yourself. He wants to burn the heart out of you. This is – this is exactly how someone would go about that.”

“What, the sex part?” Sherlock scoffed. He was staring off, above John, as if at the window. John couldn’t quite step away, though he knew he should.

“Sure,” John said. “This is how people work, Sherlock. There are certain things – certain acts –“

“Yes, yes,” Sherlock said. “I know. The feelings of powerlessness, the panic, it’s supposed to overwhelm me, right? Make me incapable of holding a normal romantic relationship, overshadow and destroy any feelings of security I’ve had. Make regular social interaction difficult or impossible.”

He looked at John for the briefest of moments, and John was tempted to touch him -- his face, his pale shaking hands, something -- before he looked away. He started to fiddle with the cuff of his shirt. “Hand me my jacket, would you?”

John nodded and walked to the couch to gather it from where Sherlock had slung it. While his back was turned, Sherlock spoke again. There was the tiniest of shakes in his voice. “I don’t suppose he knows me that well, does he, if he thought I was capable of all of that in the first place.”

John sighed. The thing was – Sherlock was unusual. He was socially awkward, cold, calculating. He wasn’t quite the sociopath that he liked to think he was, but he was close. Yet he was very much able to be hurt and harmed, and John wasn’t so obtuse that he didn’t know this was one way that someone would do it.

“All along,” John said, holding out his jacket, “we’ve thought he’d get to you through me.”

Sherlock paused, for a fraction of a second, then stepped free of the wall and turned around to get into the coat. They hadn’t discussed it, but John knew he was right. It was the only vulnerability Sherlock had shown at the pool – the only one John had shown, as well. Now that they were even more involved than they had been, John had assumed he’d be the route Moriarty would take. If he’d come to that conclusion, Sherlock had probably reached it months ago, perhaps even before the pool.

This, though, John knew, would be harder for him to understand. “Why attack me, then?” he asked, as John stepped closer to help him with the jacket.

“Because it’s tearing me up, what they’ve done to you,” John said softly.

“I’m fine.” Sherlock’s voice was tight.

“Sure,” John said. He lifted the jacket and set it on his shoulders, then rested his hand at the juncture between Sherlock’s neck and back, the tips of his fingers against the smooth skin at Sherlock’s nape. Sherlock shuddered violently, then cursed.

“Stupid,” he gritted out, reaching sharply, too sharply, for the jacket’s sleeves. He hissed at the pain.

John kept his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder for a moment. “It’s all right,” he said, holding the coat so Sherlock could get one arm into it, then the other. When he had it on, John put his hands on his shoulders and turned him around, buttoned the coat swiftly. “It’s fine.”

“Is it?” Sherlock asked, his eyes too wide.

John leaned in and pressed a kiss to Sherlock’s mouth, to the side, as non-threatening as possible. Sherlock shivered but stayed close to him for just a moment; his hands came up and gripped John’s forearms, and John saw his eyes flutter closed. He smelled of the long, scalding bath he’d taken that morning. It was the closest they’d been since the attack, the closest, perhaps, that they’d ever been outside of bed. “It will be fine,” John said. “They’re caught, and you’ll deal with them, and it will bring you closer to catching him.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, his voice low and shaky but strong, somehow. When he drew back and opened his eyes, they were alight with something like his normal ferocity. “It will.”


	5. Chapter 5

At the Yard, Donovan was waiting in Lestrade’s office. “Only you,” she said, “only you would want to fuck up your own investigation.”

“Are they here?”

“Lestrade’s with them, isn’t he,” she said, and left.

“Well, she’s over her pity, at least,” Sherlock said, leaning against Lestrade’s desk.

“That’s something, yes,” John said. “What are you going to ask them?”

“It’s more important what I’ll observe,” Sherlock said. He looked down at his hands as though inspecting his fingernails. John noticed they weren’t shaking anymore, at least not so as he could see them. “I do hope they haven’t been changed into prison garb.”

“They’re in the second interrogation room,” Lestrade said. “But you’re not going alone.”

Sherlock frowned. “John can --”

“Hah. No. You’re not interrogating my suspects without me present,” Lestrade said. “Dr. Watson, you can observe through the glass, if you’d like. Donovan will attend as well, and we’ll record it. I don’t want anyone’s attorney bringing this back against us.”

John nodded. Sherlock sighed and said, “Very well. If we may.”

They followed him down the hall a short way, and Lestrade swiped a card and punched in a code that John had no doubt Sherlock was memorizing. Then he paused, his hand on the doorknob, and seemed ready to ask Sherlock if he’d had any second thoughts. Sherlock sighed and started to reach for the door himself. “Ok, ok. Just nothing ridiculous, all right?”

“Never,” Sherlock said. They walked in.

John followed Donovan into the next room, where a one-way see-through mirror let him observe the whole thing. It was a very plain room -- white walls, a white table, six chairs set around it, and across from him, two men who matched Sherlock’s description nearly perfectly. Short haired, muscular, tough looking criminals. One had a scar above his lip; the other had both ears pierced with metal studs. They both wore just white, sleeveless shirts that exposed their tattooed arms. The scarred one was taller and had dark hair, bulky arms, and a scummy little smirk. The other appeared more nervous, eyes darting between the two men.

John was glad they’d stopped at the cleaner’s on the way in. Sherlock had his coat back on, looked every inch himself -- towering, swift, sure. He stood instead of taking the seat next to Lestrade, and John figured this was as much for effect as it was to keep him from wincing in pain in front of these men.

“All right,” Lestrade said. “You know we’ve got you dead to rights on four different accounts of robbery and assault.”

“I reckon we do,” the dark haired one said. His voice was deep and his English surprisingly full, proper, not the broken rural dialect John had anticipated.

“That’s Maxwell,” Donovan said, quietly. “The other is Kippler. Ex-con, like he said.”

John nodded. Maxwell was still staring at Sherlock, and Sherlock was returning the gaze.

“So if you’ve got us so sewed up,” Maxwell said, “what’s he doing here?”

“Investigating,” Sherlock said, his voice very crisp.

Maxwell laughed. “You’re a cop?”

“Not exactly,” Lestrade said. “But he’s here at my invitation.”

Sherlock tipped his head. “You’re not from here,” he said, looking at Maxwell. “Scotland.”

“Sure,” Maxwell said. “Not since I was a lad.”

Sherlock nodded. “Is that where you met him?”

“Who’s that, love?”

“Professor Moriarty.”

Maxwell frowned. “Say again?”

Sherlock shook his head. “He might’ve gone by a different name, though I doubt it. The man who put you up to this.”

Maxwell laughed. “Put us up to what, exactly?”

“Attacking me.”

His grin was insidious. The other man, Kippler, finally spoke in a somewhat squeaky voice. “Max, maybe we shouldn’t --”

“Oh, fuck it, Kip, he’s right, we’re done in,” Maxwell said. “No reason not play with this one, then, is there? Not that I haven’t already had a decent chance at it, once.” He looked up Sherlock up and down, his tongue hanging out a bit, and John nearly punched the wall.

“Steady,” Donovan said.

Sherlock cleared his throat. “It’s a bit crowded in here, isn’t it?”

Lestrade sighed, then glanced up at the glass and pointed toward Kippler. Donovan stepped into the hall; a moment later, an officer walked into the room and escorted Kippler out, and Donovan reappeared. “Hope he knows what he’s doing,” she murmured. “I would’ve cracked the quiet one.”

“He always knows what he’s doing,” John said, and Donovan rolled her eyes.

Inside, Lestrade had gone back over a few mundane details with Maxwell, who was offering a steady stream of “may just be,” and “sounds like an interesting story” to everything he said. Neither confirming or denying, exactly. It was too cute by half, but John appreciated that Lestrade was trying to buy Sherlock a little time to get his head on straight.

Finally, Sherlock shook his head. “May I see his hands?” Sherlock asked.

Lestrade’s head turned, and John knew his expression without being able to see it:  _Are you nuts?_  Sherlock spared him a glance, and after a moment, Lestrade sighed, rose, and uncuffed Maxwell’s hands from behind him. Maxwell stretched them out in front of him and flexed his fingers. “Bring back some memories?” he asked, rubbing his own neck.

“Bastard!” Donovan said, and John couldn’t have agreed more heartily.

“So you’re in charge, then,” Sherlock said, and Maxwell laughed.

“You remember me,” he said. “That’s sweet.”

“If you’ll tell us about who hired you,” he said, voice still -- how? -- steady, “I’m certain the D.I. could discuss certain allowances.”

Lestrade started to say, “Now hold on --” but Maxwell had already jumped in.

“Hired us? Sweetheart,” he said, and he was grinning wolfishly as he leaned forward, “why, I believe that was you, wasn’t it? Flashing your money around --”

“This is not --”

“-- tossing that hair about, why, you know, I didn’t even know you were a bloke to start with,” Maxwell said. “But of course, you were. That mouth. God. No one’s got to hire me for --”

“That’s  _enough_  out of you,” Lestrade said.

Sherlock was just staring at the man, his face entirely blank, if a bit pale. When he spoke, his voice was lower than usual -- though John wasn’t sure anyone would notice. “You know as well as we do that your friend Kippler is the weaker link,” he said. “Whatever you don’t tell us, he will. He’s in a room down the hall breaking apart right now, I’d bet. All it will take is a mention of his mother, and I imagine he’ll tell us anything we want to know. Dear religious woman like that.”

“That’s assuming he knows anything you want to know,” Maxwell said. “Nice trick about his mum, though. He’d probably tell you I’m the pope if you threaten her. Stand up real well in court, won’t it?”

Lestrade sighed. “What would help you in court would be talking to us straight.”

Maxwell chuckled. “Is this the one you were talking about, then? Your boyfriend, is he?”

John sucked in a quick breath. Good god, this had gotten out of hand but quickly. Inside the interrogation room, Lestrade was looking up at Sherlock. “Why doesn’t he stop this?” John gritted out.

Donovan said, “It’s up to Sherlock, isn’t it? Always knows what he’s doing, right?”

“I’ve explained – “Lestrade began, but Maxwell kept talking.

“If you’re this Morty fellow he was on about, well, I imagine it’s been tough times for you at home, hasn’t it?”

“I believe you know exactly who Detective Inspector Lestrade is,” Sherlock said. “He’s the one who’s arrested you. Now, if you’ll just tell us about the call.”

Maxwell was facing Lestrade, now, not even looking at Sherlock. “It’s not that I don’t see what you see in him,” he said. “But he’s got rather a mouth on him, doesn’t he? There are ways to stop him talking, of course --”

“Mr. Holmes is a consultant,” Lestrade managed, “and I’d like to remind you you’re incriminating yourself right now.”

He leaned forward a bit, his cuffed hands forming a peak. “You know, he was asking for you,” Maxwell said, still looking at Lestrade. “Kept telling me you wouldn’t let us do it. Telling us you’d be very angry.” He grinned. “Are you angry, Detective Inspector?”

“I’ve had enough of you,” Lestrade said. “Sherlock, have you got what you need?”

“What were you paid, exactly?” he asked. “Enough to buy those shoes, certainly.”

“You should know that exactly -- four hundred quid for me, all said and done, plus the money from the watch. Kip got his take, I got mine.” He grinned. “You shouldn’t carry so much cash, should you, now?”

“Yes, it must have seemed a fortune for you, after all that terrible farm work. Is that where you met? Or, no, perhaps when you were meeting your bookie.” Sherlock steepled his fingers. “Is that why your wife left you? The gambling debts piled up, left her without, well, without everything you’d promised. Add to that your impotency --”

Maxwell’s face had been growing red; it was now a dangerous purplish color. “You know quite well that’s not true!”

Sherlock’s eyes were narrowed but flashing; John could see it from where he stood, feeling stunned and bruised. “Yes, but that’s a whole different area than making it at home, isn’t it? Couldn’t exactly use a gun on her, could you? What was it? Was she a bit too demanding? Bit too smart for you, constantly making you feel a little less than manly?”

“She’s nothing like that!”

“Yes, well, I wonder what she’ll have to say when we ask.”

“You leave her out of this.”

This time, it was Sherlock that gave him an unpleasant look up and down. “Can’t say as I blame her for leaving -- it’s hardly a picture of masculinity I see before me now, someone who’s so easily tricked into --”

Maxwell lurched up out of his seat, face dark, eyes bulging, and Sherlock flinched so heavily backward that he tripped and stumbled into the wall. Lestrade was on Maxwell in half a second and had him face-down on the table, arms pinned behind him, but nothing was stopping his mouth running. “You leave her the fuck out of this! I’ll find you, I’ll do it again, I will fucking mess you up -- I will  _ruin_  that pretty face, do you hear me? You will  _dream_  about the first time, you will  _wish_ \--”

Sally Donovan’s arm suddenly shot out across John’s chest and pushed him backward; he’d been already half-out the door. “Don’t,” she said sharply, and left him there to assist Lestrade herself. John still stepped into the hallway after her, not sure what to do.

They wrestled a still-shouting Maxwell into the hallway and into the waiting grip of two men from the jail. The entire department seemed to pause to observe the spectacle, until Lestrade gritted out, “Back to your jobs, everyone.” He told Donovan to get the tape, and John stepped around her and into the interrogation room.

Sherlock was standing, one hand on the corner of the table, looking down at it as if for evidence. He didn’t seem to react when John opened the door. “All right?” John said. He nodded, briefly, but didn’t speak. “He’s gone, now,” John said, even more quietly. “Come out of here, yeah?”

Sherlock nodded again. John didn’t like his silence. This didn’t feel contemplative; it felt empty, blank, frightened and frightening. He held the door, but Sherlock waited until he stepped out to walk past him. No touching again, John thought. A bad sign.

“Christ, Sherlock,” Lestrade said from behind John. “You had to wind him up?”

“Emotional reactions can be useful,” he said. His voice was flat and soft.

“Yeah.” Lestrade shook his head. “All right. Come on, back to my office. Let’s hear it, then.”

Sherlock didn’t move. “Those are the men you’re looking for.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Lestrade said. “Now I want to know what you saw.” Sherlock shook his head. He briefly opened his mouth, then closed it. “What, that’s it? This whole exercise, and -- and nothing?”

Sherlock cleared his throat, then rubbed his hand against his neck. “They are who you say they are,” he said. He turned and started to walk away.

“Nothing? You -- Sherlock, come back here!”

Sherlock stopped. He was still facing away, but from several feet back, John could see his shoulders shaking. He felt like everyone in the office was watching them, watching this play out. “If you require me in your office right now,” Sherlock said, voice so hoarse his words were barely coming through, “you’d best get a bin.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s going to vomit,” John said, hurrying forward and grabbing Sherlock by the elbow, ignoring his small shiver of fear, and hustling him to the men’s lavatory. Inside Sherlock broke free and shoved into the first cubicle and swung the door shut on John’s face, then fell to his knees with a groan. John winced at the noise of him being sick and felt a certain, medical coldness begin to clear his head. Sherlock hadn’t even had breakfast to speak of, he thought calmly. The noise came again, this time accompanied by a heavy, heaving sound like a sob, and John wished he’d thought to bring the pain medication with him. Gut-wrenching vomiting and broken ribs were an awful combination. If he wasn’t careful, he might do himself more damage. Perhaps a sedative.

He heard the toilet flush.

“All right?” John asked, lurking just outside the door.

“No,” Sherlock said. “No, John, I don’t think I am.”

“I’m going to open the door, then.”

Inside, Sherlock was leaning against the wall, face green-white, eyes clenched shut. As John watched, he dissolved into a terrible fit of coughing that left him pale and gasping. Tears were streaming from his eyes. John stepped back and grabbed a handful of paper towels, and he offered these, because there wasn’t anything else available at the moment. Not a bottle of whiskey, not a gun, just the echoes of Sherlock’s agony against the tiled restroom walls.

After a moment, he took the towels and gave his face a harsh scrub. As John watched, he pulled his legs up a bit and sighed, a heavy, broken sound. A trickle of blood dripped from his nose. “This is intolerable,” Sherlock said, holding a towel to his mouth

“Yeah,” John said. He crouched in the doorway. “What’d you see?”

Sherlock closed his eyes. “It wasn’t – wasn’t him,” he muttered.

John flinched. “What? But you just told –“ He stopped. Of course Maxwell was the man who’d done this. So Sherlock must mean something else, someone – oh. “Not Moriarty, you mean.”

Sherlock didn’t move. “Just a random robbery,” he murmured, then laughed harshly and briefly, before groaning again. “How did I miss –“

“Because you’re not the detective on this one,” John said. “You’re the victim.”

Sherlock looked up at that. John had avoided the word so studiously until now, but there was no denying it. This wasn’t a game, it wasn’t a setback, it wasn’t just some bad day at the office. There’d been a crime.

“I hate it,” Sherlock said, finally.

“God, I know,” John said.

There was nothing else to say. This situation had no solution, at least not a fast one. The men had been caught; they would be punished; and John knew, already, that wouldn’t matter. The damage they’d done, the vulnerability they’d made Sherlock realize, was something a prison wouldn’t protect against. It would make every investigation now more difficult for them both.

“I suppose we should go,” Sherlock said after a moment. His voice had recovered, a bit, and when he pulled the towel away, there was no fresh blood on his face.

“We don’t have to yet.”

Sherlock offered a small smile. “It’s rather statistically unlikely that not a single member of the detective corps will need to use the loo for another twenty minutes,” he said. “Lestrade’s been blocking the door since you came in.”

“Ah.” John stood, slowly, and offered a hand to Sherlock. He took it and slowly clambered to his feet. He was still white-faced, still unsteady. John wanted to protect him, somehow, shield him from the eyes of the many detectives beyond that door. They couldn’t see as much as Sherlock could, certainly, but they could all see, and John knew there was more showing on Sherlock’s face than he’d ever want them to know.

Sherlock looked down at his coat: it was rumpled, and there was a smear at the lapel. “Disgusting,” he said, and John helped him take it off. John went to the sink to run it under a bit of water, while Sherlock took the next sink to briefly wash his face. “I should imagine I’ll get a volume discount, soon, for the number of times that’s gone to the cleaner’s of late.”

“You want mine?”

Sherlock shook his head. “You can’t protect me from this, John,” he said, quietly, almost tenderly.

“You can’t stop me trying.”

“No.” Sherlock straightened his jacket. He looked just fine, except for his trembling hands and the bright, raw redness of his eyes. “Let’s get it over with, then.”

They walked out together, shoulder to shoulder, and Sherlock kept his head up. John carried his coat and opened the door to Lestrade’s office. Sherlock stepped inside, and they were followed after a moment by a visibly stunned Lestrade. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Whatever for?” Sherlock asked. “They’ve done this for at least two years,” he said. “You should be looking beyond the coffee cart pattern. Find his bookie, and you’ll be able to figure out when the whole thing started, I’d think.”

“Right,” Lestrade said. “I suppose his friend will give us that.”

“I’d say so.” He shook his head. “The Moriarty path is, of course, a mistake. I should have recognized it when – well. I credited those two with more skill than was perhaps appropriate.”

“You did bring them in,” Lestrade said. “You’ve saved others this.”

Sherlock nodded, but it was perfunctory. At the moment, John almost understood. He didn’t give a flip about others at the moment. He cared about Sherlock, about getting him home.

“Let me know when they’re to be in court,” Sherlock said. “I’d like to see that.”

“Me as well,” John said.

On their way out, Sherlock took his arm. It was devastating. John thought for a moment he might weep, himself, knowing that the strength had all but been knocked out of his companion. Instead, they made it downstairs and into a cab without incident, without anyone – thank Christ – trying too hard to be concerned. They took a cab home and Sherlock didn’t say a word the whole time, though he did lean his head against the glass in the car. He just looked so fucking awful, John thought. Beyond the bruises and the bloodied nose, there was the vacancy in his eyes, the bewilderment where there had always been confidence. The quivering hands. The tightly closed eyes. He wondered what kind of treatment might even be possible. A therapist? What a laugh, for Sherlock. They’d have to find the world’s smartest therapist. Someone he’d respect and fear, perhaps. Mycroft might know.

In the flat, Sherlock gave no pretext before he climbed the stairs and locked himself into the bathroom. This time, John didn’t even try to make excuses to himself about waiting outside. He heard the shower curtain being pulled, heard the water begin to rush, and then nothing. He called out when there had been silence for too long, and Sherlock said, “I’m fine,” and they did that every five minutes for the next twenty-five. When Sherlock finally emerged, he was shivering and his skin was wrinkled and John didn’t let him get away with slinking off to his room alone. He followed, and he sat on the bed and stayed while Sherlock dressed, and then when Sherlock lay down and put his head in John’s lap he stroked his wet, cold hair and didn’t bother to tell him things would be all right. They wouldn’t. They weren’t. They couldn’t yet be.

 

 

 

He stayed with Sherlock that night, and the next, and the next. He wasn’t sure whether any healing was happening on the inside, but Sherlock at least started to feel better, physically. After a week, his face was beginning to fade back into its usual smoothness; his neck was clear and unblemished; even his ribs had progressed to just “painful,” instead of being an emergency when he twisted wrong. Lestrade sent a box full of cold cases, and after ignoring it for three days, Sherlock finally deigned to read them and then got interested. He set up an elaborate experiment in the kitchen to test the likelihood of someone weaponizing bathroom mildew. John didn’t complain; he just made sure they went out for meals.

After another week or so, Sherlock still flinched, but not all the time. He wouldn’t go back to Scotland Yard yet to discuss anything with Lestrade, but when it came time to go to the Crown Court to see Maxwell and Kippler face a judge, Sherlock said he was fine. He didn’t bother to say he’d go without John, and John didn’t bother to pretend he’d ever make him. They just put on their coats, together, and went.

John wasn’t sure what he was expecting, really. A guilty plea from Maxwell, he knew that. Kippler had provided even more information about the things they’d done, and that was going to send them both away – though Maxwell for much more time. John found that rather satisfying, though also, well, a bit underwhelming. He wished he could deal with the man himself.

Sherlock, as though knowing his thoughts, had hidden his gun somewhere devious. “You can have it if you want it,” he’d said the night before, “but only if you really, really want it.”

Of course he did, and of course he didn’t. He wasn’t going to prison just because it might, for one second, make him sleep a little better at night – because that’s all it would be, a momentary relief. The problem wasn’t that Maxwell existed and did evil for no good reason – no deducible reason; the problem was that there were men like him everywhere. Men without motives, men without means, even, who still managed to commit appalling – if small – crimes every single day.

So he would go to this court hearing and watch justice, as it was, be done. It was all he could hope for, all he could ask for.

He had no idea if it would be enough for Sherlock.

They took a seat near the back at the beginning of a long string of hearings. Lestrade had said he expected the case to come up within the first hour, so John held their seats at the end of a long bench. He thought they’d watch and then leave, maybe have time to get a cup of tea with Lestrade after the whole thing. Sherlock would love to talk about his cases, John thought; it would take his mind off of all of this.

The court was called to order, and Sherlock shifted restlessly next to him. John put a hand out to his knee, a brief, bare brush against his suited leg, and Sherlock nodded. Didn’t touch him. He was fine.

On the other side of Sherlock, a woman was crying. Her face was pink with it, her eyes swollen. She’d been up all night, probably, John thought. Sherlock probably knew her whole story by now, but he wouldn’t ask. He could imagine. Maybe her man or her son was up here on charges. Maybe she, like them, was there to see some thin, unsatisfying bit of justice done. John would have liked to be closer to her, so that he might offer her a handkerchief or interrupt her crying just briefly, but it was fine.

“Appropriate soundtrack, at least,” Sherlock murmured, leaning close.

John nodded. “Wish they’d get on with it,” he whispered in return. The first case seemed to have something to do with a car jacking. What a ridiculous crime, John thought. Who in their right mind wanted a car in London?

“Boring,” Sherlock muttered, clasping his hands together. Next to him, the woman’s sniffles grew louder, moving right toward sobbing.

The barrister called their case.

Maxwell didn’t look any different. He was dressed in prison garb, as was Kippler; they’d been denied easy bail, and John was certain that was Mycroft’s influence, somehow. Maybe Lestrade. There was an experienced prosecutor working the case, not some hand-me-down who’d lost a bet, and John credited their friends with that, as well. He didn’t imagine there were many state lawyers who wanted to go to bat for Sherlock – not when his unorthodox methods so often made their cases a nightmare at trial – but many of them were willing to put up a good fight when Lestrade asked. John had no doubt that he had.

The men shuffled to their table, and John was aware only of them and of Sherlock’s sudden rigidity next to him. His knuckles had gone white. His face, too, was pale. “The judge and the prosecutor have a history,” he said, but John didn’t miss the slight hoarseness in his voice.

The crying woman had picked this moment to gather her things. She pulled a large bag onto her lap and started shuffling noisily through it, the sobbing growing worse. Sherlock leaned forward, as though to hear better, and John wondered whether he should put a hand on his back.

The balliff announced their names and read off a list of things they’d been charged with. Armed robbery: eight counts. Petty theft: fifteen counts; sexual assault; two counts. So the man in Kensington had decided not to pursue his case after all. “Pity,” Sherlock said between his steepled fingers.

“How do you plead?”

Kippler’s lawyer spoke first, addressing the court very formally before entering a guilty plea. Next, Maxwell, who had opted to represent himself, started to speak – but John couldn’t hear him, as the crying woman had stood up. He turned to look at her, to shush her or something, and noticed that Sherlock was doing the same. “Don’t,” Sherlock said, a low, terrible moan.

The woman looked at him, and John started to say, “What’s –“ and then she looked away and stepped up on to the bench. There was a gun in her hand.

“I’m so sorry!” she cried, and before the shots had even rung out, John had grabbed Sherlock and dragged him to the ground and into the aisle. He covered Sherlock’s body with his own, in a crouch like he hadn’t tried since the war. The woman was shooting, and shooting, and shooting; it was an impossible number of shots, fast but again and again. John realized slowly his ears were ringing and his heart was pounding; the woman had actually stopped shooting minutes before, and now her body was lying on the ground near them, a neat bullet hole in her left temple and an explosion where the rest of her head had used to be.

Sherlock was still under him, curled against the side of the bench, one hand over his head. John backed off of him, asked if he was OK, then asked again when Sherlock clearly didn’t hear him.

“What’s happened?” he asked, sitting up slowly, one hand to his chest.

“Are you hurt?” John asked.

“Tell me,” Sherlock demanded. His breathing was ragged. Christ.

“She’s – she’s shot someone,” John said, and realized how unhelpful that was. Sherlock was dangerously wan. “I’m going to find –“

“She shot them,” Sherlock murmured. “John, it’s true, isn’t it.”

He nodded. He hadn’t seen anything, but it was all that made sense. There were screams and cries of “Medic! Is there a doctor!” from the front of the courtroom. John couldn’t help his instant reaction; he turned, started to stand, then looked at Sherlock. Sherlock swallowed hard. “The woman,” he said.

“Dead,” John said.

“Oh god, no,” Sherlock said, softly. “No, she can’t – be – she –“

“Sherlock, stop it,” John said, pushing him smartly back against the bench. He was gasping for air in shuddering, appalling breaths.

He tried to push John’s hands away. “I need – to – see –“

“Is it your chest? Does your chest hurt?”

“John, please,” he said, and John wasn’t sure what he was being asked for, just that something was going horribly wrong.

He heard the clatter of a gurney and looked up, grabbed the trouser leg of a young medical tech running past. “This man is hurt,” he said. “I’m a doctor, he’s got a punctured lung, perhaps, I need oxygen.”

The medic glanced from him to Sherlock and then to the front. “Right,” he said, and dashed back a few paces, grabbed a kit from another medic, and then handed it to John. “What else do you need?”

“Help,” he said, turning back.

Sherlock had sagged to the side – no, John realized, he was pitching himself to the side, trying to crawl over to the dead woman’s body. His hand was reaching toward the pool of blood encircling her head. “It’s not – it’s not – “ Sherlock was saying, but he was having trouble even forcing the words out.

“Easy,” John said. “Easy, it’s fine, it’s all – Sherlock, she’s dead, she can’t do anything else.”

“She’s not the one,” he rasped.

“Not the what? No,” John said, “I don’t care. Breathe, Sherlock, if you pass out I’m putting you in the ambulance.”

Sherlock nodded and took a deep breath. “Not a – not a puncture,” he said, allowing John to guide him back to a seated position.

“Does your chest hurt?”

“Incredibly.”

John grabbed a stethoscope from the medic’s bag and pulled it on, then started to unbutton Sherlock’s shirt. He was still panting, but the bemused grin he struck made John feel much better. So did the fact that his breathing and heartbeat sounded fine, if too fast.

“Are they dead?” Sherlock asked, and it took John a second to realize he was looking up and past him, to where Lestrade had stopped.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“He’s all right, we’re all right,” John said. “Just a bit much excitement. What’s happened?”

Lestrade’s face was red; there was a smear of blood on his trench coat. He crouched next to them as John pulled back from Sherlock. The medic took back his stethoscope and began to give Sherlock a more thorough look. “Both of them shot. The little one, Kippler, got it in the neck, might be OK, but Maxwell’s a complete goner. Twice in the back of the head, once through the chest. How did she even get a gun in here?”

“She was next to us the whole time,” John said. “Sobbing. She was – she was distraught.”

Lestrade crossed his arms. “I’d say that much is clear.”

“Oh get off,” Sherlock said, pushing the medic away. “Get me up. I need to see them.”

Before John could even say it, Lestrade said, “No. No. Absolutely not, Sherlock, I can’t –“

“She didn’t want to kill them,” he said.

“No? Well, she did a bang-up job.”

Sherlock sighed, coughed, then spoke in a hoarse voice. “She also didn’t shoot herself, as even your lame forensics men will see in a moment, if you’d bother to call.”

John looked over at the body. Of course she’d killed herself. Gunshot to the head, woman holding a gun – oh. Again, the wrong side of the head. Again. “Wait,” he said. “You’re not thinking…”

Sherlock nodded. “This time I’m right,” he said quietly.

 

 

They made it back to their flat after another two hours. Sherlock recovered enough to get involved in the forensics himself, with John trailing along, trying to get him not to overdo. It was useless, of course, and by the time they got home they were both dead tired. Sherlock stumbled as he walked up the stairs, and John barely caught him from falling.

“Easy,” he said, and Sherlock nodded.

They’d learned enough to be very, very worried. The woman sitting next to them was a mother of twins from Hampstead. The twins had been found in a car park outside Gatwick just after the shooting; their whereabouts had been text-messaged to their father, who had been at work, oblivious. In the car, there was a bomb and a small video camera, which the police figured had been broadcasting to the mother’s mobile phone all morning. She’d been made to go to the court and shoot these two men, knowing that if she didn’t, her children would die.

They speculated that it was her admission before the shooting – “I’m so sorry!” – that had made Moriarty order she be killed, regardless. That shot had come through the closed window, and by the time Sherlock had convinced them all that they were looking for a second shooter, everything had been cleared from the building next door. The trail was cold, but it did, at least, lead undoubtedly to Moriarty.

“But why?” John had asked, and no one – not even Sherlock – had been able to hazard a guess. There was still no connection between the men and his criminal empire. The woman, too, seemed to be as random a choice as his other bombing victims.

Sherlock staggered into the flat and fell immediately into his armchair. John took off his own coat and went straight for the kitchen. He filled the kettle and turned it on, then set about finding tea and anything that looked even slightly edible. His hands were only now beginning to feel unsteady.

“John,” Sherlock called.

“I know, two sugars,” John said back. “We’re out of milk, though, so you’ll have to make do.”

“Could you come here a moment?”

John sighed and set down the tea bags and mugs. It would take a moment for the water, anyway. “What is it?”

In the living room, in the middle of the floor in front of the couch, there was a vase of roses. Beautiful, lush red roses, at least two dozen, in full bloom. They had not been there when they’d left.

John swallowed hard. Sherlock was peering at them from the sofa, now, where he’d apparently moved. “I don’t suppose Mycroft…” John said, and Sherlock shook his head. John circled the flowers. “Should we call someone?”

“There’s a card,” Sherlock murmured, and before John could advise against it, he reached out and snapped it up. “Feminine,” Sherlock said, studying the envelope. It held two words: Sherlock Holmes.

He drew out the card slowly, narrating. “Commercially made. Plain, cheap, probably what came free. Same handwriting. Cheap pen.”

“What does it say?”

Sherlock smiled in a way that expressed absolutely no joy. He turned the card around. Two words, again:  _Only me_.

John frowned. “What does it –“

“I was right,” Sherlock said.

“Moriarty? He was involved with Maxwell and –“

“No,” Sherlock said. “Not at all. But he’s sending me a message, now.” He tucked the card back into its envelope and then back into the bouquet. “No one’s going to kill me but him.”

John shuddered. “That’s – it’s positively –“ He crossed and sat next to Sherlock. They both kept staring at the roses.

“I did want him dead,” Sherlock said, after a moment, his tone too light.

John nodded. “Me, too,” he said. “But that’s different.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, though he sounded doubtful. “I suppose it is.”

John stood and grabbed the vase. “What are you --?” He opened the window, looked out, then dropped the whole pile onto the sidewalk below. The explosive sound of the crashing glass was heady and cathartic. He wished he had ten more vases to throw. He turned to face Sherlock. “Don’t start,” he said. “Don’t you dare start thinking you’re like him or you owe him. He had them killed for fun. Because it’s a game. And you – you hid my gun for a reason.”

“I did,” he agreed.

John nodded. “As for this, I’ll show him how grateful I am, someday, by making sure no one gets a clean shot at him during his trial.”

Sherlock smiled, briefly, then looked down at his own hands. “John,” he said, voice quiet. “You’re a very good man.”

John smiled. “I reckon I am,” he answered. He put his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, and there was still a tremor, but not much. It was getting better. “I know you think this means you’re on a case, now, but you’re still taking tea and then rest this afternoon.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, nodding. John pretended not to notice when he dabbed at his eyes. “That sounds fine.”

And it would be, John figured. Soon enough, it would be.


End file.
